â€œThe United States has to work with the international community because global warming is not a problem that weâ€™re going to solve alone. Were going to need the rest of the world to be with us.â€

â€œIf we show leadership on this issue,â€¦. other countries are going to recognize that they cant be left behind. Theyâ€™re going to be with us.â€

â€œ[India and China] realize that they have to go along [with us]. They want to be part of this effort. Theyâ€™re using that argument [that they oppose cap-and-trade for economic reasons] rhetorically and weâ€™ve got to challenge it.â€

â€œWe have to say to [India and China], weâ€™re going to be the leaders. Weâ€™re going to work on technology. Work with us.â€

A Heritage Foundation report points out that Waxman-Markey, if pursued unilaterally by the United States, â€œwould moderate temperatures by only hundredths of a degree in 2050 and no more than two-tenths of a degree at the end of the century.â€ In other words,Â the billÂ would suck trillions of dollars out of the U.S. economy in exchange for a benefit so smallÂ as to beâ€”even in a best-case scenarioâ€”wholly imperceptible.

â€œA multilateral approachÂ would not fare much better. In the case of international cooperation, India, China, and the rest of the developing world would have to revert to their 2000 levels of CO2 emissions by 2050. On a per-capita basis, China would backtrack to about one-tenth of what the U.S. emitted in 2000. India and most of the developing world would have to drop to even lower levels. This scenario, in addition to being highly unlikely, would de-develop the developing world.â€

Yet none of this matters to those whoÂ clamor for cap-and-tradeâ€”Democrat luminaries likeÂ Henry Waxman, Barack Obama, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Â Animated by an insatiable thirst for power, these political zealots cannot wait toÂ foist their scheme upon the American people for one overriding reason:Â because of the immense revenues it could raiseâ€”albeit underÂ the mostÂ fraudulent of pretensesâ€”to fund their dream of an ever-more-expansive and omnipotent federal government.